Tylman van Gameren was a Dutch architect who worked in Poland. He was an outstanding representative of the trend towards classicism in High Baroque architecture. He was born on 3rd July 1632 in Utrecht, and died in 1706 in Warsaw. Tylman (Tielman) van Gameren was the son of a tailor.
He gained a careful and comprehensive education in The Netherlands, including under the guidance of Jacob van Campen. The latter was the greatest architect working there at that time. Tylman deepened his knowledge of architecture during his travels. He went to Germany and Italy, among others, and presumably visited France.
His trip to Venice in the early 1660s turned out to be particularly influential on all his later creations. During his stay, Tylman got acquainted with the works of Andrea Palladio, and besides architecture, he also perfected his painting skills.
Move to Poland
From there, he came to Poland, most likely asked by Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski in 1662. He associated himself for many years with the court of the later Marshal of the Crown, one of the brightest minds of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Tylman was under his influence, and he traveled with him to Rome in 1666, and again in 1687.
As the first architect in Poland, he reached high social and professional status. During his coronation in 1676, Jan III Sobieski honored him with the title of Knight of the Golden Spur, which equaled ennoblement (the diploma is part of the collections of the Print Room of the Warsaw University Library). Parliament conformed to his nobility in 1685. The architect then received the Polish surname Gamerski. Earlier, in 1677, Tylman married the Polish noblewoman Anna Komorowska.
In his early years in Poland, van Gameren worked as a military engineer in the service of Grand Marshal of the Crown Jerzy Sebastian Lubomirski. For many years, Tylman took commissions from Lubomirski’s son, Stanisław Herakliusz, and took orders for designs for mansions from other aristocratic families as well.
During his stay in Poland, Tylman van Gameren designed more than 70 buildings. But only a small part of them remain intact today. One of the most important projects was the Palace in Puławy, built for Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski. This is the earliest example of the use of an ancient temple portico in the facade of a residential building on Polish soil. However, the Czartoryski family rebuilt the palace in the 18th century.
Tylman van Gameren his works
Tylman’s finest building, Krasiński Palace in Warsaw, has been widely admired ever since its construction. It’s still in its almost original form. It became a source of reference for many other palaces designed by the Dutchman. The most important of them are the residences in Nieborów and Bialystok. A good example of his smaller buildings is the Gniński-Ostrogski Palace on Tamka Street in Warsaw (now the Fryderyk Chopin Museum).
Among the religious buildings designed by Tylman, the university collegiate Church of St. Anna in Krakow stands out with its size and unusual shapes. It’s adapted to the requirements of the chapter. Having greater freedom, the architect chose to create central-plan churches. Two excellent examples of these are St. Kazimierz Church in Warsaw’s New Town and the Bernardine Church in Czerniaków, Warsaw.
Tylman also designed the first big urban architectural complex, Marywil, founded on the initiative of Queen Maria Kazimiera on the site of today’s Theater Square. Uniform houses enclosed the trapezoidal square on three sides, and on the fourth side, there was a colonnade with a chapel in the middle.
In his designs, the architect favored plain, compact structures, completely devoid of dynamics. He strove to meet harmony, balance, and perfect proportions. Tylman usually planned simple rhythmic partitions of walls by pilasters. His main sources of inspiration were Dutch architecture and the works of Palladio.
Tylman van Gameren died in 1706 in Warsaw. He’s buried in the Moscow Chapel of Our Lady of Victory Dominican Church. The alleged self-portrait of the architect from 1667, made with ink on paper, is in the collections of the Print Room of the Warsaw University Library.